Vintage Mugshots That Are As Chilling As They Are Fascinating

By Gabe Paoletti | Checked By John Kuroski

Published July 10, 2017

Updated February 21, 2018

These vintage mugshots allow us to see both the horror and humanity in the faces of criminals from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

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James Dawson
Indecent Exposure
North Shields Police Station, UK
June 9, 1902Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums/Flickr

2 of 34

Lawrence Armstrong
Theft
North Shields Police Station, UK
September 30, 1915Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums/Flickr

3 of 34

Mustapha Irola
False Pretenses
North Shields Police Station, UK
August 19, 1904Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums/Flickr

4 of 34

William Stanley Moore
Dealing opium
Central Police Station, Sydney
May 1, 1925Sydney Living Museums

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Isabella Hindmarch
Theft
Newcastle, UK
Circa 1871-1873Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums/Flickr

6 of 34

Charles Ormston
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Circa 1930sTyne & Wear Archives & Museums/Flickr

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Herbert Ellis
Central Police Station, Sydney
Circa 1920Sydney Living Museums

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Andrea Laudano
Larceny
North Shields Police Station, UK
July 21, 1904Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums/Flickr

9 of 34

Ellen ("Nellie") Kreigher
Murder
Central Police Station, Sydney
July 13, 1923Sydney Living Museums

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James Chase
Obtaining money by false pretenses
North Shields Police Station, UK
January 22, 1916Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums/Flickr

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William Morrissey
Sleeping Outdoors
North Shields Police Station, UK
July 11, 1904Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums/Flickr

12 of 34

London
Circa 1880SSPL/Getty Images

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Digambar Badge
One of the attempters on Gandhi's life, afterwards released for cooperating with the prosecution
India
May 12, 1948 Mondadori Portfolio/Getty Images

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Catherine O'Neill
Theft
New York
1906 Library of Congress

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Cachar, Assam, India
Circa 1870

Under British rule, members of local tribes and ethnic groups deemed "criminal" were required to check in with local police weekly and be processed.Hulton Archive/Getty Images

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James Davit
Obtaining money by false pretenses
Newcastle, UK
Circa 1871-1873Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums/Flickr

17 of 34

Tom O'Day, alias Joe Chancellor
Member of the Hole in the Wall gang
Circa 1900Library of Congress

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Lewis Powell (aka Payne)
Abraham Lincoln assassination conspirator
Aboard the U.S.S. Saugus April 27, 1865Bureau of Prisons/Getty Images

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Lizzie Cardish
Arson
Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary
1906Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

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Nathan Leopold
Murder
Joliet Prison, Illinois
1924Topical Press Agency Hulton Archive/Getty Images

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Francis Flood
Theft
Central Police Station, Sydney
May 5, 1920Sydney Living Museums

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Charles S. Jones
Larceny
North Shields Police Station, UK
September 15, 1914Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums/Flickr

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Alice Cooke
Bigamy and theft
State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay, New South Wales
1922Sydney Living Museums

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John Gumis
Larceny
North Shields Police Station, UK
October 5, 1903Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums/Flickr

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Valerie Lowe
Breaking and entering
Central Police Station, Sydney
February 15, 1922Sydney Living Museums

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Dutch Schultz
Gangster
1931Hulton Archive/Getty Images

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Jean Baptiste Troppmann
Murder
Paris
1869Apic/Getty Images

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From left: Leonetti, Guiffaut, and Galendemi (first names unspecified)
Bank robbery and murder
Marseilles, France
Circa 1930FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

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Mafia shootout suspects
Regio Calahia, Italy Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images

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James E Howe
Theft
North Shields Police Station, UK
September 19, 1906Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums/Flickr

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1889Harlingue/Roger Viollet/Getty Images

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Jane Forbes
Larceny
North Shields Police Station, UK
January 26, 1905Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums/Flickr

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Walter Smith
Breaking and entering
Central Police Station, Sydney
December 24, 1924Sydney Living Museums

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33 Vintage Mugshots That Bring The Past To Life

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Shortly after the invention of photography, police quickly realized its utility in fighting, or at least dealing with, crime.

Police in Europe and the US began using photography to keep records of criminals starting in the 1840s, only a couple years after the invention of photography itself. By 1888, French policeman Alphonse Bertillon had created the template for the "mugshot," featuring a single photo of the subject straight-on, coupled with a photo of the subject in profile.

Since then, the countless mugshots taken of criminals (and the wrongfully arrested) around the world have given us a photographic record of the kind of history we can't really get anyplace else.

Many of our surviving images of the past are of royalty, nobility, and the wealthy. We learn about kings and dukes, patrons of the arts and wealthy merchants. Far more rarely do we have a chance to truly glimpse into the lives of ordinary people, let alone criminals.

Mugshots are a record of the past that few people see, and their confrontational nature, with the subject staring directly at the camera, forces us to confront their humanity. People in mugshots are divorced from their context, in many ways, and allow us to see them as the people that they are, not figments of a long gone past.

Above, you'll find some of the most striking mugshots that history has to offer.

Next, see some of the best famous mugshots of artists, leaders, and entertainers throughout history.